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Thursday, 14 April 2016

Lai Mohammed, minister of information, says there
are ongoing talks with the Boko Haram sect on the release of the Chibok
schoolgirls.

Commenting
on the newly-released video which
the sect used to prove that the girls were still alive, Mohammed told CNN that
the details of the conversation will not be disclosed in order not to endanger
the negotiations.

He said
the new video showed that there had been “little transformation in their
(Chibok girls) physical appearance”.

“There
are ongoing talks. We cannot ignore leads but of course many of these
investigations cannot be disclosed openly because it could also endanger the
negotiations,” CNN quoted him as saying.

Mohammed’s
statement affirmed an earlier comment which President Muhammadu Buhari made on
negotiations to free the girls.

“Let them
bring all the girls and then, we will be prepared to negotiate, I will allow
them to come back to Nigeria or to be absolved in the community,” he had said
during a visit to France in September.

“We have
to be very careful, the concern we have for the Chibok girls, one only imagine
if they got a daughter there between 14 and 18 and for more than one and a half
years, a lot of the parents who have died would rather see the graves of their
daughters rather than the condition they imagine they are in.

“This has
drawn a lot of sympathy though out the world, that is why this government is
getting very hard in negotiating and getting the balance of those who are
alive. They wanted us to release one of their leaders who is a strategic person
in developing and making Improvised IEDs that is causing a lot of havoc in the
country by blowing people in Churches, Mosque, market places, motor parks and
other places. But it is very important that if we are going to talk to anybody,
we have to know how much he is worth.”

Attempts
to negotiate with the sect in the past led to an embarrassment on the part of
the previous government, as the group kept on carrying attacks despite
so-called agreements on ceasefire.